A lecherous thing is wine, and drunkenness Is full of striving and of wretchedness. O drunken man! disfigur’d is thy face, Sour is thy breath, foul art thou to embrace: And through thy drunken nose sowneth the soun’, As though thous saidest aye, Samsoún! Samsoún! And yet, God wot, Samson drank never wine. Thou fallest as it were a sticked swine; Thy tongue is lost, and all thine honest cure; For drunkenness is very sepultúre Of mannë’s wit and his discretión. In whom that drink hath dominatión, He can no counsel keep, it is no dread. Now keep you from the white and from the red, And namely from the whitë wine of Lepe, That is to sell in Fish Street and in Cheap. This wine of Spainë creepeth subtilly In other winës growing fastë by, Of which there riseth such fumosity, That when a man hath drunken draughtës three, And weeneth that he be at home in Cheap, He is in Spain, right at the town of Lepe, Not at the Róchelle, nor at Bourdeaux town; And thennë will he say, Samsoún! Samsoún! But hearken, lordings, one word, I you pray, That all the sov’reign actës, dare I say, Of victories in the Old Testament, Through very God that is omnipotent, Were done in abstinence and in prayére: Look in the Bible, and there ye may it lear. Look, Attila, the greatë conqueror, Died in his sleep, with shame and dishonór, Bleeding aye at his nose in drunkenness: A captain should aye live in soberness. And o’er all this, advisë you right well What was commanded unto Lemuel; Not Samuel, but Lemuel, say I. Readë the Bible, and find it expresslý Of wine giving to them that have justíce. No more of this, for it may well suffice.
And, now that I have spoke of gluttony, Now will I you defendë hazardry. Hazárd is very mother of leasíngs, And of deceit, and cursed forswearíngs: Blasphem’ of Christ, manslaughter, and waste also Of chattel and of time; and furthermo’ It is repreve, and contrar’ of honoúr, For to be held a common hazardoúr. And ever the higher he is of estate, The morë he is holden desolate. If that a princë usë hazardry, In allë governance and policy He is, as by commón opinión, Y-hold the less in reputatión.